Las Vegas jail to get more officers

Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

The Las Vegas City Council is to consider on Wednesday a plan to add 37 detention officers to cope with an influx of prisoners from stepped-up crime-fighting downtown, but the long-term solution to inmate growth is likely to be a jail expansion several years down the line.

"We're considering that. In this next budget process we're going to look at expansion concerns and issues," Deputy Detention and Enforcement Chief Bill Fraser said. "Right now it's just in the preliminary stages -- we don't have any cost put together or anything yet."

The last expansion of the Mojave Detention Center more than doubled its capacity, adding 800 beds to what is now a 1,200- to 1,300-capacity facility. The expansion took place in 1993 at a cost of $8 million, Fraser said.

The cost for the 37 additional officers is pegged at $1.8 million, according to city documents prepared for the Wednesday meeting.

Fraser said they're necessary because the jail population, which early in the year typically had been about 750, has swelled to as much as 1,400. Officers are using about $2 million a year in overtime, he said.

"We're responsible for the inmates' safety and security and, when you have officers working too much overtime, it could pose some serious security problems," Fraser said.

He said the 37 new officers would represent about a 20 percent increase in jail staff. They would be phased in over the next two fiscal years, he said.

"Hopefully in January we would hire around 18. Starting in July 2005, we'll hire the remaining 19," Fraser said.

Starting pay for the new officers would be $45,000 a year, Fraser said.